What is sustainable agriculture?

Like other famously difficult to define terms, capturing the meaning of "sustainable agriculture" often comes down to just knowing it when you see it. Even though, the California Farm Bureau Federation took another shot at figuring out just how to define what is an increasingly appealing agricultural concept, according to an article in the today's issue of AgAlert.

According to the story, delegates at the Farm Bureau's annual meeting discussed the meaning of sustainable agriculture. Here are some of their thoughts:

• "Sustainability is a new term for things we in agriculture have been doing forever." - San Joaquin County winegrape grower Brad Goehring

• "From a farmer's point of view, economics is most important because if you are not economically sustainable, you can't do anything at all." - Lodi winegrape grower Bruce Fry

•  "We have evolved toward a point in time where people are recognizing that you can't do things that are 'better for the planet' if firms are not economically viable in doing so, but the broader impacts also are increasingly being considered." - UC Davis Cooperative Extension agricultural economist Roberta Cook

• "All of the mainstream market leaders have sustainability programs from Wal-Mart, PepsiCo, Coca-Cola, McDonalds, Starbucks, Red Lobster and Sysco. This is about Wall Street as much as Main Street." - Jeff Dlott, president of SureHarvest, a company that creates sustainability tools and professional services (And formerly a UC Berkeley biological control scientist) 

• "Sustainability does resonate and it is going to be a huge thing in the marketplace going forward." - Aaron Lange of Lange Twins Winery in San Joaquin County